In this year’s women’s football World Cup, the American women’s football team, which honors the first, ranked the first and earned the first, created the worst record of Young Pioneer team history, only defeated Vietnam. After scoring Holland and Portugal and no goals for 248 consecutive minutes, lost to Sweden in the first elimination match and fell to the top 16 early.
On this game alone, it can be described as twists and turns, and the penalty kick war is very dramatic. The 38-year-old veteran captain Meghan Rapino lost an important record of penalty kick in the last battle of his career. However, when the war became more and more fierce, the United States began to encounter huge boos, the audience in Melbourne seemed to be happy to see them go home.
Sweden’s winning penalty kick was especially exaggerated. American goalkeeper Eliza nahepburn had already jumped out, but the ball was opposite spin in the air, and Naher could not save again. The referee used door line technology to finally determine that the ball entry distance was one millimeter, which was really a literal loss.
After such a painful regret, the American women’s football team issued a statement, saying that they would learn from the pain and rise up to meet the challenges of the world, but unexpectedly, the comment area attracted a lot of mocking celebrations.
Coincidentally, the New York Times’s articles praising Lapino’s legendary career also showed the situation of the big rollover in the comment area.
On the social network, the strength of the women’s football team is even more likely to attract the carnival of American netizens. This kind of scene that Chinese people watch their national team jokes is quite rare in any international competition.
The video of Rapino’s tears is full of sounds of “love to see” and “deserve it.
It is said that sports is the game of winning the King and losing the enemy, but for the American women’s football team, the numerous disputes they have provoked for themselves in the past few years have made the cost of losing this game too high.
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Starting from the warm-up clothes when LeBlanc James took the lead in wearing “I can’t breathe” (in fact, this was his younger brother Owen’s initiative, which turned out to be the fuse for the two to break up the Knight relationship), BLM protests throughout the American sports world in the past ten years have experienced two climaxes. The first was the national anthem protest launched by NFL star Colin Capetian Nick in 2016, and the American women’s football team had already been involved at that time.
That year was when Trump came to power, which aroused the “metoo” movement among American people and gave birth to a huge ideological change. The American women’s football team-especially Rapino-came to the forefront of the times. Although WNBA and other professional leagues participated in the national anthem protest, when Rapino, who represents the national football, took the lead and knelt down, it instantly became the national headline and cultural phenomenon.
Rapino famed: “It is impossible for a team without homosexuality to win the championship. This is the theorem from ancient times till now.
Sociologists all commented on her, calling her “White Wolf with empty gloves”, because as a white man, she is not the object of racial discrimination, and compared with many black athletes who lead the protest, her behavior did not lead to any serious consequences. You should know that Nick himself was excluded from NFL in Capetian. Earlier, he said that Ali had been banned for refusing to participate in the Vietnam War and deprived of the honor of champion.
Since 2016, the American women’s football team has brought the football association to court on the issue of equal pay for equal work. In addition to Rapino, the five-member group of the plaintiff at that time also included Alex Morgan, Hopo Solo, Carrie Lloyd and Becky solburen.
The women’s football team has a unique background with such a tough attitude. American women’s football has always been better than men’s football. Since 2015, no matter the attention, audience rating or the revenue created for the Football Association, it has not been lower than men’s football, however, the bonus and Income allocated by the Football Association to the women’s football team is only a fraction of that of the men’s football team.
Although the data given by the American Football Association on its official website is still that the women’s football team has suffered more losses for a long time (from 2009 to 2015), the Football Association cannot deny that the audit report was from 2016 to 2018, the revenue of the women’s football competition has exceeded 50 million dollars, nearly 2 million dollars more than that of the men’s football team. In this case, the average income of women’s football team per victory is less than 5,000 dollars, while that of men’s football team is 13000 dollars.
The lawsuit between the women’s football team and the Football Association was delayed for several years, during which Rapino also became a man of the hour in the United States, the political incidents involved include, but are not limited to, opposition to Trump’s verbal eviction of female minority MPs from the United States, and opposition to the Supreme Court’s overthrow of abortion rights. On the one hand, she became the thorn in ones side of many people, but on the other hand, she was elected as the fourth female annual sports figure in the history of Sports Illustrated.
By the 2019 World Cup, Lapino had been praised as “Ali of her generation” by The Atlantic Monthly, and the women’s football team once again collectively sued the American Football Association for gender discrimination, this inspired countless fans on the stage of the World Cup that year to shout the slogan of “equal pay for equal work”, and the momentum of the American women’s football team reached its peak.
Before the semi-final against France, Rapino fought with Trump again. Rapino claimed that she felt that the United States under Trump had no place to live, “he is trying to split this country, to consolidate his power,” Rapino said.
From then until now, Lapino and the American women’s football team have become the representatives of “Leftist lunatics” in the American conservative population. If the male athlete Trump hated most was LeBlanc, the female athlete was nothing but Rapino. He even disdained to call her by name and called her “the purple-haired woman”.
13-0 victory over Thailand can be called the Battle of declaration. After winning the championship, the American women’s football team refused to go to the White House to be received by the president.
In 2021, the American women’s football team won the bronze medal at the Tokyo Olympics, which was ridiculed by Trump. “If our women’s football team does not take the lead of these radical left lunatics, they will definitely win the gold medal,” Trump said. “Those who support the awakening are all losers, but those who are related to the awakening will definitely have no good results.”
In the past few years, the whole American sports world has been torn by various cultural wars, all of which are on the steel rope that tries to seek balance in commercial interests, cultural images and political positions. But only the American women’s football team seems to put aside all scruples and go to the extreme farthest from Trump regardless of running.
Even the older generation of women’s football generals, Lloyd and Soro, questioned the way Lapino led the team. They felt that there was something wrong with the internal culture and atmosphere of the women’s football team, everyone’s goal seems to have changed from victory to “tossing political and social problems”.
The praise and criticism received by the women’s football team in extreme places are equally fierce. This radicalization has brought them great attention and made them occupy a unique place in American contemporary culture, it is no longer an unknown existence. But even Lapino understands that going extreme means cutting off the retreat and must be a master of constant victory. She admitted: “If you can’t win the ball, there will be no media attention, no support from fans, and no chance to speak out.”
But after two World Cup champions and one Olympic gold medal, her failure was still not forgiven.
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Last year, under the pressure of public opinion, the American Football Association and the women’s football team reached a historic equal pay agreement for equal work, and also compensated 24 million settlement fees. The men’s football team won the top 16 in Qatar World Cup with more than 13 million bonuses. According to the new agreement, the women’s football team took half of them, which was more than the sum of their bonuses after winning the championship in 2015 and 2019. This year, their performance is the same as that of men’s football, with a bonus of 3.25 million, and half of the same as men’s football.
Therefore, it is difficult for many people to understand why the women’s football team, who has received such treatment, still poses a posture of hatred for the country in this World Cup.
Lapino once put down the harsh words four years ago, saying that he would never sing the national anthem again or salute the national anthem again. But at a time when most black athletes in the United States have forgotten the national anthem protest, the women’s football team is still sticking to it. Before the start of the game that was eliminated by Sweden, they became the target again because many players refused to salute because they did not sing the national anthem.
American gold medal anchor Meghan Kelly criticized Lapino like this: “She is the initiator. Although she failed to attend the appearance ceremony by playing the substitute, she was the initiator.”
“She poisoned the atmosphere of the whole team, making the women’s football team who was originally playing for the country become anti-American. I am will not support such players. I really hope they lose the match. Such behavior is really shameful. It seems that they don’t want to play at all. What’s the point of entering the national team?”
Kelly is not a traditional conservative. Her story against Fox TV was once filmed as “explosive news”
In this World Cup, every move of the women’s football team was still observed under a microscope. For example, in the group match, the football team kicked Portugal. After the match, a player signed a photo with a smile for the fans, and the players danced together, this was criticized by Lloyd who explained the game on Fox TV.
Lloyd said that she had played so many games for the women’s football team and had never seen such a mental outlook. “I would like to express my gratitude to the fans. It is no problem to communicate with my family. But laughing so happily, did you dance? To be honest, the best play in the game is probably the doorpost. They can get out by luck.”
Portugal (ranked 21 in the world) is close to killing America
Lloyd also suggested that Lapino brought evil spirits to the women’s football team, “I said when I retired in 2021 that I felt that the hearts of this team and the Football Association have changed and the culture has changed, the meaning of victory is no longer the same,” she said. “A lot of things happened under the court. They really shouldn’t take it for granted. Wearing the jersey of the national team should go all out, but now I can’t see such enthusiasm.”
In fact, young players like Trinity Rodman (the daughter of Dennis Rodman) have less radical attitudes. However, after Rapino retired, it is still unknown who will carry the banner of American women’s football and who can change the culture of this team.
Rodman’s daughter is considered to have the potential to become the mainstay of the future of the American women’s football team.
Anyway, the American women’s football team has become the “anti-American women’s football team” among some people. No matter whether they can or don’t deserve to represent the United States, they do expose the United States to a large extent.
As the saying goes, this absurd public opinion field today is definitely not the result that can be caused only by unilateral agitation of the women’s football. In such a big environment, it is difficult for both the rightist and leftist to make a fair evaluation of this women’s football team. The most neutral media (which is also the favorite to watch the scene of Bustle) may instead become TMZ.
And this itself is funny enough.
2023 Women’s World Cup, cheer for beautiful and energetic policewoman!